


Lucid Dreaming

by water_bby



Category: Naruto
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-01
Updated: 2010-07-01
Packaged: 2017-10-15 21:54:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/165295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/water_bby/pseuds/water_bby
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kakashi is missing, and the Hokage has ordered that no one is to go after him, but Iruka is being plagued by nightmares.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lucid Dreaming

Iruka screamed as the rock wall flowed over his fingers, inching over the knobs of his wrist as he lost all sensation from his fingertips. It was _eating_ him, turning him into rock, and he didn't dare touch the wall with his other hand, or the wall would eat that as well. Wildly, he wondered if he could simply cut his arm off above where it disappeared into the wall. At the thought, he was buffeted by a wave of frustration that he knew did not belong to him.

And then he woke, panting, in his own bedroom with the friendly candlelight from his bedside table. Damn, this was the seventh night in a row he'd dreamed of being turned to stone.

It wasn't always the same dream, but there was a pattern -- he'd be out in the forest looking for Kakashi when he'd come across some strange-looking object or building, and then he'd start turning to stone. And every dream ended with that wave of frustration.

Five days ago, after Kakashi failed to return from his latest mission, the Hokage had rejected any request to go looking for him. Iruka had not argued. However, after another five nights of dreams, he could no longer _not_ go after Kakashi. The dreams were too insistent, too _real_ , for him to convince himself that they were simple nightmares. _Something_ was telling him that Kakashi was in trouble (although, what kind of trouble would lead to dream images of turning into stone Iruka had no idea), and he had to trust that whatever it was would lead him to Kakashi.

He was glad that it was a school break -- at least he wouldn't leave his students without a teacher -- and he had already asked for some of the time off he was due from Mission Desk duty. No one would come looking for him for at least a couple days.

In the morning, he was not stopped as he left Konoha, the gate guards assuming that he was just going for a long run outside the village, and he had done just that, heading west and south as long as he was within sight of the gate. Afterwards, he turned northeast towards Lightning; he knew that Kakashi's mission had been in that area. He ran as long as he could, pausing twice to rest briefly while he ate, until he had to stop for sleep.

That night's dream was different. He saw himself running while the primary emotion was happiness. But his attention was forced to landmarks on his way -- a stream, a rock formation, a particularly distinctive tree. Iruka woke, convinced that he had been given the information he needed to find his missing friend.

A day and a half later, Iruka stared at the castle complex before him, stone and wood and surrounded by water. It looked deserted, but he was sure that this was where the dreams had been pushing him. He took a deep breath, checked that his weapons and scrolls were at hand, and went looking for a less obvious entrance than the front gates.

Finally, he found a narrow gate around the back of the circular complex. He had to cross one of the many pools of water linked together to form a moat about the walls to reach it, but when he tried the gate, it swung open easily. Inside the corridor was also narrow and dark. He lit one of the torches that lined the walls, let the door swing shut behind him, and started forwarded into the building. He turned at the end of the corridor, and then froze as he heard a low growl from the corridor. Before he could extinguish the light, however, the growl stopped.

"Iruka-sensei? What are you doing here?" In the light of the torch, he saw a small statute that looked a lot like Kakashi's Pakkun, but carved from stone with exaggerated claws and bat-like wings.

"Pakkun? What happened?"

"Yes, obviously, and I don't know -- none of us know. We answered a summons which brought us here and were...changed. Now, answer my question."

Yes, Iruka thought, that was Pakkun. "I've had dreams, the sense that I needed to come find Kakashi."

"Good luck, sensei. He doesn't even talk to us these days."

Iruka knelt to offer his hand to Pakkun, and was actually a bit surprised when the small nin-dog pushed his nose forward in an obvious request for to be petted. As he ran his hand over the stone head, the texture beneath his fingers warmed, Pakkun grunted once, and then the nin-dog he knew was before him rather than the strange stone form. Iruka snatched his hand back, and Pakkun stared at him as the nin-dog once again changed to stone.

"Go, Iruka-sensei! Find him!" And Pakkun moved out of the way to let Iruka pass.

At the next turn in the corridor, he found a large room with a still burbling fountain in the corner. A weak light come in from the windows high in the opposite wall, showing dust and paw prints. Had Pakkun been here? Were the other nin-dogs around? Pakkun said that they had all been called and changed, so it would be reasonable to assume they were here somewhere. But there were no signs of Kakashi, not even a footprint.

Iruka looked at the fountain and decided that he might has well have a bite to eat while there was a ready source of water.

Hours later, he had found a number of other rooms, nearly all of which contained some sort of water -- fountains, pools, one waterfall on an interior wall -- and a number of which had paw prints in the dust. Nothing, however, indicated where Kakashi might be. As the light began to fade, he crossed the moat between the area he had already examined and the next set of buildings. These were much like those in the outer ring, but he finally found a place that looked like it was defensible and so safe for sleeping, at least for a short while. Maybe his dreams would provide more information, as they had over the last two nights.

This dream started as the earliest ones had, with him searching for Kakashi. But now, rather than Iruka turning to rock, it was Kakashi, his naturally pale skin bleached to the white of chalk, the Sharingan became a ruby, and Kakashi's face and hands morphed to something like his ANBU mask and gloves, the black of the ANBU tattoo stark against his white shoulder. He turned his face to Iruka, a growl coming from deep in his chest before he rushed away. Iruka's heart raced -- he would have no chance against a fully armed Kakashi -- and then he saw some of the pools and fountains of the castle, fading into pools in a wooded clearing before the castle returned. Finally, he was, once again, led on a path, twisting through the next set of buildings and finally to the central tower of the complex.

Iruka jerked awake. He couldn't tell how long he'd been asleep this time, but the emotional pressure was back, a sense of anticipation, hope, and determination. "What do you want?" he asked it, no really expecting an answer, when he had a sudden image of Kakashi as he had last seen him in Konoha. "You want me to find Kakashi?" A burst of happiness. "To rescue him?" Anger. "Then what!" Again an image of Kakashi.

Iruka stood and headed back out into the complex, doing his best to ignore the hope pressing on him from the outside. He didn't know what had brought him here, but he did trust it to show him the way to Kakashi, if not its motive.

As he passed a window, he glanced out at the tower and his attention was grabbed by a flash of white on the roof. He stopped and stared, realizing that he was seeing Kakashi, a Kakashi who was as changed as the nin-dogs. He placed his hands on the edge of the window to jump down and race toward the other building when he was hit by an image of Kakashi's claws ripping into his neck. Panting, he leaned on the wall by the window, wondering why it was so important that he not approach Kakashi yet. He had trusted whatever it was so far, so he would trust it a bit longer.

Once he did reach the tower, he took a deep breath. He had come so far, and yet he still had no idea how to rescue Kakashi. Or if he _could_ rescue Kakashi. How could he make Kakashi human again?

"I'm here," he said to the force that had led him here. "What should I do now?"

Iruka felt resolve and regret press upon him, and then he was elsewhere, one of the places from the dreams, smooth stone walls as far as he could see. But this time, there was a light gleaming around a corner. Iruka followed. The light moved as he did, always gleaming from around the next corner, leading him through the maze of corridors. And then he stopped in a doorway, the light coming from a deep blue pool in a beautifully decorated room, stone walls carved with scenes from folktales or with intricate geometric designs.

Regret whispered in his mind, and grief, and resolve, and curiosity. He took a deep breath and answered the unasked question. "Whatever it takes to change him back." And then he was _pulled_ into the pool, down into the depths. For a moment, he thought he would drown before he could work the jutsu that would allow him to work the water, and then the regret shifted to pleasure, even joy, and Iruka felt himself overcome by that emotion and then he not only was in the water, he _was_ the water, fluid, hard to hold, more powerful than the stone surrounding him as long as he was willing to spend the time working on it. This was _his_ castle now, and nothing could force him from it.

And the emotions that had been speaking to him for days were gone.

Iruka remembered the pool at the center of the tower, wished he knew how to get there, and then realized he already was. He willed his hands to land on the edge of the pool, and fingers gripped the floor while hands and arms formed from the water, lifting his body from the pool, clothes dry as soon as they were exposed to the air, and then he was kneeling by this new pool, readying himself to hunt Kakashi once more.

Iruka couldn't have said how he knew where to look for Kakashi, but he did, just as he knew where each of the nin-dogs currently was. He also knew that once he found Kakashi, he would be able to undo what had been done to the other man. The floor beneath his feet faded briefly into a carpet of grass, but he jerked it back to a floor with a thought. The pool-covered clearing was beautiful, but the castle felt more appropriate for this moment. He moved swiftly toward the upper levels of the tower (a very tall tree, part of his mind supplied) not bothering to muffle his footsteps. Finally, he reached the top of the stairs and smiled at the motionless Kakashi who stared back at him from the center of the room.

"I've been looking for you. Shall we see if I can reverse things?" He'd taken only a couple of steps towards the other man when Kakashi rushed at him, claws forward, much like in his dream. This time, though, Iruka didn't feel fear. Any competent ninja would be able to transport away, but Iruka no longer needed to do so (stone can displace water, his mind whispered, but it can't harm it; in the end, water always wins). He stepped forward into the rush, dodged to the side away from Kakashi's extended claws, and then wrapped his arms around Kakashi's chest. "Come back to me, Kakashi."

Iruka brushed his lips across Kakashi's rapidly warming neck, the stone becoming skin as he laid open-mouthed kisses up the neck, pausing to suck at the edge of neck and jaw. When Kakashi turned in his arms, he stopped trying to undress his lover and settled for long, drugging kisses. Iruka wasn't sure when Kakashi had removed Iruka's clothing, it was almost as if they had simply melted away, but he really didn't care. They had been parted for too long and the dreams had been too horrific for him to focus on anything except reassuring himself that Kakashi was as unharmed as possible.

After he had done so, however, he was more than willing to let Kakashi take the lead in their reunion. He reveled in the feel of his lover's warm hands stroking across his chest and down his thighs, and after they finally wrapped their hands around each other’s cocks and raced each other to completion, Iruka happily snuggled against Kakashi's chest.

He was happy to discover that, unlike Pakkun a couple days earlier, Kakashi did not turn back to stone when Iruka moved away from him to dress a short while later. He couldn't figure out where his clothes had gotten to, however, and was focused on that search when Kakashi stopped him with a touch on his shoulder and handed him a bright blue yukata.

"I think you'll have to take care of the big stuff, but I can handle clothes and furniture."

Iruka looked at him.

"Maa, sensei, you do know that we're stuck here, don't you?"

Iruka took a deep breath and nodded. "I said I'd do anything to rescue you; this is a small price to pay." Then he smiled wickedly at the older man. "So, a bed?"

\----------

The jounin watched her genin team pause to draw in deep breaths. Their easy little C-class mission had, unfortunately, drawn the attention of high-ranked missing nins, and they had been running for over a day, trying to make their way back to Konoha. And now they were in an area rumored to be haunted, or worse. Konoha had been avoiding this patch of forest for years, but she did not know of any other way that might bring her students home safely.

"Move," she commanded, knowing that if her young team stopped for too long, she wouldn't be able to get them moving again.

"Look, Iruka, Sakura-chan has a genin team! Do you think they provide her sufficient trouble?"

She whirled, looking for where drawled words had come from. Two men now stood behind her, where there had been no one. The taller one was nearly hidden by the shorter one, so all she could see was a shock of pale hair and his silk-clad arm. The man in front looked as if he'd come from his bath, hair slicked down around his scarred face and wearing a simple yukata. Neither looked a day older than they had when she had last seen them, back in her own genin days.

"The path over there will be the shortest way back to the village," the shorter said, pointing toward a small stand of trees by a shallow looking pool. "Go now. They will be here soon."

She jerked her head in the direction the man had pointed, getting her team moving again. She had no time to pursue this mystery, not with young lives depending on her. "They will not stop until they find us. You will be in danger simply being in their way."

The taller man chuckled. "We can take care of them, Sakura-sensei; you get your genin home."

She did not want to turn her back on them -- they had meant too much to her in her youth -- but she could not abandon her team. At least the children were out of sight, now, so she moved to follow them, breaking into a run when she heard the sounds of the missing nins approaching.

Before she moved out of sight, though, she turned to run backwards, to check on her long-missing teachers. They stood beside a small stream, looking off towards where the missing nin were likely to enter the clearing. As the first ninja broke from the trees, Iruka-sensei moved away from Kakashi-sensei, walking into the stream he had been standing beside. He turned to face toward her, smiled, and dissolved into the stream. But Kakashi-sensei moved toward the missing nin, clothing changing, _skin_ changing, until what sliced through the neck of the first nin was not a man but a moving statue.

She turned back toward home, following her students, already deciding just how to report that she'd seen a man turn into a statue of a Konoha ANBU, complete with mask and tattoo.

**Author's Note:**

> written for the Summer 2010 round at kakairu_fest for the following prompt:  
> Genre: Horror  
> Three things that can be included: gargoyles, tattoo, water  
> Scenario: Kakashi has been reported missing while on a mission. Iruka sets out to find him, against The Hokage's orders to not leave the village.  
> Squicks: Deathfics, characters as females


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